Now all it needs is a good introductory book. O'Reilly's Learning Python is not that book, IMHO. I'm sure better tutorial books for Python are coming, but I haven't seen one yet.
Anyway, I might be inclined to start them out with QuickBASIC and a good book, but I'd make sure to help them get a feel for structure via subroutines and ground them a week for every Goto I saw in their code...!
On the other hand, based on their ages, I'll assume they're regular web users. To that end, maybe it would be good to get them going in web programming. First HTML, then making their pages dynamic with PHP, ASP or perhaps Perl/CGI. I think this is better than straight VB for two reasons:
1. Like VB, web pages allow them to get results right away, through HTML coded pages.
2. Unlike VB, they can do all their coding manually in text editors, instead of dragging and dropping objects from a toolbox onto a form, which I think is an unhealthy way to begin programming.
HTML with client-side scripting lets them explore interface design in an environment they're already familiar with, the web browser.
Plus, once they get comfortable coding simple pages with server-side script, it's only a small logic-leap to making those pages interact with a database like MySQL or Access, thereby introducing sound database concepts in a fun way.
Metallica may be going about this the wrong way, but I'm of the opinion that the VAST majority of today's top artists share the same viewpoint, but are laying low, feeling fortunate that someone else took action so they might not have to themselves. The rest of the industry's artists can now sit back and wait for whatever legal precident Metallica's actions bring about, without taking any public relations risks themselves with their own fan bases. At least Metallica took a stand and told their fans what they think, for better or worse. I prefer that to the deafening silence currently eminating from the rest of these artists. For it or against it, at least Dr. Dre, Chuck D. of Public Enemy, and Metallica tell you where they're at on the issue.
Metallica's just doing this wrong, I think. The music industry's sales/distribution model is a dinosaur, and speaking as a former fan (everything pre-black album), the Metallica of 10 years ago probably would have struck up this debate at the heart of the problem (the monopolistic, exploitative music industry) instead of acting like out-of-touch, self-absorbed rock stars. The Metallica of 10 years ago was proactive, unlike now, apparently. Too bad.
I find it amazing how most of the posters here can completely dismiss such a massively complex problem/issue with one or two cleverly worded paragraphs.
My goal all along has not been to argue over all this, but to find rational opinions that could convince me that I was being too pessimistic. Hasn't happened yet. The best most people seem to be capable of is to joke about the whole thing. Seems easier than facing reality; I understand. Scary stuff, denial.
At the risk of going on a little long, here's a small fraction of my two cents:
- Here in the USA, with six deadlines since the summer of 1998 come and gone, most agencies of the federal government are still noncompliant, and receive poor ratings when independently evaluated on their progress.
- Among utilities and big business, what few actual claims of compliance exist are self-reported and unverifiable.
- Most Americans' logic of "we're all right, it's those other countries that are in trouble" falls apart when one considers that it's a global economy, and we are in no way an island unto ourselves. The division of labor is not just a catchy buzzphrase, it's real. Global trade is real. International banking is real.
- The U.S. imports fully half of its oil from other countries, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela among them. These countries are widely believed to be WAY behind. If these countries experience disruptions in their ability to export, keep in mind that the oil crisis of the 1970's was the result of only a SEVEN PERCENT decrease in supply.
- If Y2K is little more than a hoax, why has Citibank, for example, spent nearly a billion dollars on fixing it? Were they hoodwinked by a clever consultant? Or could it be that the risk of not fixing it was worth WAY more than $1 billion?
- If government, big business, and utilities have been working on it for years now, and they're still not completely fixed, tested and compliant, what are they possibly going to achieve in a month and a half more? Nothing more than a switch over to a fix-on-failure approach that I, personally, find less than inspiring.
- For a personal example: In December, 1998, the utility that supplies my region's power was audited and said to have been 15% of the way through their remediation. FIFTEEN PERCENT, and that's not even counting time needed to test these fixes in real-world usage. In ten months since then, I haven't found a single documented update of the status of my power company. Not exactly comforting. On this topic, consider that the organization responsible for making sure that the power companies get compliant (NERC - The North American Energy Reliability Council) is privately appointed by the power industry itself and has no real teeth in these matters. Great.
- The FAA is not nearly compliant. Think airfields full of parked, grounded planes. Think bankrupted airlines.
- Think bad data from noncompliant systems corrupting compliant systems. Think the whole being only as good as the sum of its parts.
- Think of how many fully functional, computerized, systems of labor and industry it takes just to keep your local grocery stocked with food. To keep hospitals up and running. Jeez, just to keep the heat on in the middle of the winter. Division of labor. The knee bone's connected to the thigh bone... Sing along, you know the words!
- Most of all, don't just think January 1. Think both short and long range implications.
I could go on and on with these. Thankfully, I won't.
Do I think the world is going to end? No. Am I buying weapons and digging a moat around my home? No, no, no. Instead of making empty predictions, I've taken to thinking in terms of risk-managment, at least on a personal level. I have established what I've judged to be a resonable level of preparedness for my family and loved ones for disruptions that could occur in the weeks and months following Jan 1. I think most people won't prepare because it requires some amount of personal sacrifice, but in the end I guess I'd rather have what I don't need than need what I don't have. Whether you prepare at all is a personal decision, obviously. Whatever one decides, I just don't see the logic in dismissing Y2K as a non-event, given all the information that is available if you just look for it.
I will be the happiest person in the world if I turn out to have been overly pessimistic. Peace.
Slashdot Mirror
Python
Agreed.
Now all it needs is a good introductory book. O'Reilly's Learning Python is not that book, IMHO. I'm sure better tutorial books for Python are coming, but I haven't seen one yet.
For what it's worth, I began on VIC-20 BASIC.
Anyway, I might be inclined to start them out with QuickBASIC and a good book, but I'd make sure to help them get a feel for structure via subroutines and ground them a week for every Goto I saw in their code...!
On the other hand, based on their ages, I'll assume they're regular web users. To that end, maybe it would be good to get them going in web programming. First HTML, then making their pages dynamic with PHP, ASP or perhaps Perl/CGI. I think this is better than straight VB for two reasons:
1. Like VB, web pages allow them to get results right away, through HTML coded pages.
2. Unlike VB, they can do all their coding manually in text editors, instead of dragging and dropping objects from a toolbox onto a form, which I think is an unhealthy way to begin programming.
HTML with client-side scripting lets them explore interface design in an environment they're already familiar with, the web browser.
Plus, once they get comfortable coding simple pages with server-side script, it's only a small logic-leap to making those pages interact with a database like MySQL or Access, thereby introducing sound database concepts in a fun way.
Good luck.
Metallica may be going about this the wrong way, but I'm of the opinion that the VAST majority of today's top artists share the same viewpoint, but are laying low, feeling fortunate that someone else took action so they might not have to themselves. The rest of the industry's artists can now sit back and wait for whatever legal precident Metallica's actions bring about, without taking any public relations risks themselves with their own fan bases. At least Metallica took a stand and told their fans what they think, for better or worse. I prefer that to the deafening silence currently eminating from the rest of these artists. For it or against it, at least Dr. Dre, Chuck D. of Public Enemy, and Metallica tell you where they're at on the issue.
Metallica's just doing this wrong, I think. The music industry's sales/distribution model is a dinosaur, and speaking as a former fan (everything pre-black album), the Metallica of 10 years ago probably would have struck up this debate at the heart of the problem (the monopolistic, exploitative music industry) instead of acting like out-of-touch, self-absorbed rock stars. The Metallica of 10 years ago was proactive, unlike now, apparently. Too bad.
I find it amazing how most of the posters here can completely dismiss such a massively complex problem/issue with one or two cleverly worded paragraphs.
My goal all along has not been to argue over all this, but to find rational opinions that could convince me that I was being too pessimistic. Hasn't happened yet. The best most people seem to be capable of is to joke about the whole thing. Seems easier than facing reality; I understand. Scary stuff, denial.
At the risk of going on a little long, here's a small fraction of my two cents:
- Here in the USA, with six deadlines since the summer of 1998 come and gone, most agencies of the federal government are still noncompliant, and receive poor ratings when independently evaluated on their progress.
- Among utilities and big business, what few actual claims of compliance exist are self-reported and unverifiable.
- Most Americans' logic of "we're all right, it's those other countries that are in trouble" falls apart when one considers that it's a global economy, and we are in no way an island unto ourselves. The division of labor is not just a catchy buzzphrase, it's real. Global trade is real. International banking is real.
- The U.S. imports fully half of its oil from other countries, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela among them. These countries are widely believed to be WAY behind. If these countries experience disruptions in their ability to export, keep in mind that the oil crisis of the 1970's was the result of only a SEVEN PERCENT decrease in supply.
- If Y2K is little more than a hoax, why has Citibank, for example, spent nearly a billion dollars on fixing it? Were they hoodwinked by a clever consultant? Or could it be that the risk of not fixing it was worth WAY more than $1 billion?
- If government, big business, and utilities have been working on it for years now, and they're still not completely fixed, tested and compliant, what are they possibly going to achieve in a month and a half more? Nothing more than a switch over to a fix-on-failure approach that I, personally, find less than inspiring.
- For a personal example: In December, 1998, the utility that supplies my region's power was audited and said to have been 15% of the way through their remediation. FIFTEEN PERCENT, and that's not even counting time needed to test these fixes in real-world usage. In ten months since then, I haven't found a single documented update of the status of my power company. Not exactly comforting. On this topic, consider that the organization responsible for making sure that the power companies get compliant (NERC - The North American Energy Reliability Council) is privately appointed by the power industry itself and has no real teeth in these matters. Great.
- The FAA is not nearly compliant. Think airfields full of parked, grounded planes. Think bankrupted airlines.
- Think bad data from noncompliant systems corrupting compliant systems. Think the whole being only as good as the sum of its parts.
- Think of how many fully functional, computerized, systems of labor and industry it takes just to keep your local grocery stocked with food. To keep hospitals up and running. Jeez, just to keep the heat on in the middle of the winter. Division of labor. The knee bone's connected to the thigh bone... Sing along, you know the words!
- Most of all, don't just think January 1. Think both short and long range implications.
I could go on and on with these. Thankfully, I won't.
Do I think the world is going to end? No. Am I buying weapons and digging a moat around my home? No, no, no.
Instead of making empty predictions, I've taken to thinking in terms of risk-managment, at least on a personal level. I have established what I've judged to be a resonable level of preparedness for my family and loved ones for disruptions that could occur in the weeks and months following Jan 1. I think most people won't prepare because it requires some amount of personal sacrifice, but in the end I guess I'd rather have what I don't need than need what I don't have. Whether you prepare at all is a personal decision, obviously.
Whatever one decides, I just don't see the logic in dismissing Y2K as a non-event, given all the information that is available if you just look for it.
I will be the happiest person in the world if I turn out to have been overly pessimistic. Peace.